Saint Simon by The Shins

There’s no beating a perfect melody, and Saint Simon has several, all of which are delivered through a set of lyrics packed with more rhymic flow than on your average Kanye track. The spacious instrumentation allow the lyrics to breathe and sweep you away in a breathless tide of nonchalent musings, some of which hold more weight than at first appears.

Since I don’t have the time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes that help us out in making sense of our lives.

The cruel, uneventful state of apathy releases me, I value them but I won’t cry if the time one’s wiped out.

The song builds to what feels like a crescendo, but at 2:03 the guitar solo lowers us down from the cliff edge when we were desperate to be pushed. The music evaporates rather than explodes, and we’re back into a dream as we ‘step into the night’. All that remains is for the closing section at 3:35 to draw everything to a fitting finale. It’s almost as if the band take a step back and let the melodies do all the work themselves, which they do with the most graceful execution.

Where now? Click here to listen to this song and others on the Words.About.Music Spotify Playlist, and read about each track here.